


blood is thicker than water

by farewelltheten



Category: PAYDAY (Video Games)
Genre: Backstory, Based on in-game lore, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-10-10
Packaged: 2018-04-10 17:15:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4400447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farewelltheten/pseuds/farewelltheten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The rest of the crew call Dallas and Houston brothers, but there's nothing behind the word. Beyond Crime.Net's basic profiles is a history that both of them lived, that stitches together fourteen years of distance into one coincidental reunion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. cutting ties

**Author's Note:**

> trying to uncheapen "I mean I _guess_ we'll make Houston Dallas's brother" by writing a backstory to it, hooray!  
>  as of 9/3/15 I switched this from a series into a multi-chapter work, since it's easier to organize that way.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before the First World Bank and before the Payday Gang, "the face that everyone fears" was just an older brother in a big city.

_I shouldn't have done that._

Nathan pulled the empty suitcase out from under his bed, tossing clothes and important things from his room inside. Maybe a more self-respecting 30-year old wouldn't still be living with his parents, especially since he was making a decent amount of money, but distancing himself from them wasn't going to protect them from what he'd gotten into with the mob.

Well, except for this. Unlike most everything else he tried to do, his plan to pit two mob families together had backfired spectacularly, and now everyone wanted his head on a plate. He had to get out before he was out for good. Hopefully his family wouldn't be targeted, considering he never mentioned them otherwise. If he ran without any hesitation, he doubted they'd use them against him.

Nathan slammed the suitcase shut, carrying it down the stairs to the front door. He was halfway through putting on a heavy coat when he heard a voice from upstairs.

"Nate? The hell're you doing up this early?"

He froze as a lanky kid came down the stairs, rubbing his eyes tiredly. After a moment, Nathan shrugged the coat on fully, picking up the suitcase. Of all of the people he didn't want to see him leaving, it was his kid brother, Matthew.

Nathan never asked for a little brother - for all intents and purposes, he was meant to be an only child, until his parents had gotten a little too frisky and they'd presented him with a new sibling when he was thirteen. It was weird. Suddenly his mother was spoiling a toddler again, and he couldn't even count the number of times he'd had to babysit. His parents had started lecturing him about "setting a good example" and "being responsible for your brother." He found it almost funnily ironic considering the current situation. This damn kid was always trying to get into whatever he was doing, naive as he was. He was seventeen, dammit, he didn't know much about the mob or organized crime, or any other illegal things Nathan was doing, aside from the fact that his older brother had some suspicious "friends" that his parents didn't know about. Nathan would've told him when he was an adult, when he could understand. ...Except now he couldn't.

"I'm going on a trip with some friends, Matt. I won't be back for a while."

Matthew looked confused. "Where?"

"It's a road trip. Lots of places."

"Nate." He said, sounding unimpressed.

"I dunno, they said it was a surprise trip. They're probably gonna be pulling it outta their asses as we go." Nathan forced a chuckle, hoping it was convincing.

"Fine. When're you coming back?"

"Dunno. Depends on the traffic."

Matthew looked at least somewhat satisfied with his answers. Nathan patted him on the head, opening the door to leave.

"Look after Mom and Dad, okay, little brother?"

"Yeah, okay." His brother said begrudgingly, slapping his hand away from his head.

Nathan walked out the door, tossing his suitcase into the passenger's seat before rounding the car and climbing into the driver's side. He glanced towards his house, seeing Matthew leaning against the doorway watching him. He gave a little wave as he started the car and drove away, heading towards the freeway.

"Where's a good place to lie low? Somewhere far, but not obvious..." He muttered, gaze resting upon a road map of Texas lying below his suitcase. "...That could work."


	2. gravestone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Actions have reactions, and nothing good ever comes out of running away.

Matthew never saw his brother again.

He hadn't understood Nathan's parting words to him until a police officer showed up on their doorstep one day with a grim look on his face. Matthew hid next to the door frame to the sitting room as their mother sat the officer down with a cup of black coffee, wringing her hands as her eyes darted from him to the table.

"Is something wrong, officer?"

"Ma'am, do you recognize this car?" He asked, sliding a polaroid across the table.

She picked it up, hands starting to tremble as she saw what looked like a car crash in the picture, with a familiar car in it. Tears welled up as she realized it was the Chevy Impala she'd bought for her son years ago, sunken into a ditch, windows broken, rear bumper smashed.

"This- this is Nathan's car. Where-"

"It was found a few miles from Kansas City. There were bloodstains in the backseat."

"Is he...?"

"We didn't find a body. We...have reason to believe that the mob had some involvement in it."

"The...the mob? I don't understand, Nathan's never been-"

_Take care of Mom and Dad for me, okay, little brother?_

"...Nate's dead?" Matthew said suddenly, stepping into the room.

"Matthew, we- we don't know that," But he could see the disbelief in his mother's eyes, even as she said it.

"Nate's dead." He repeated, taking a step backwards only to fall to a sitting position on the ground, not believing the words coming out of his mouth. "He's not coming back. I didn't even say goodbye to him when he left. I- I should've stopped him- I shouldn't have just watched him-"

"Matthew, _stop!_ " His mother cried, jumping up from the sofa and dropping to her knees next to him, cradling his head. "...It's not your fault. None of us knew this would... We'll bring him home. I promise."

He didn't respond. He had no tears to cry, no grief to express. Not even when the police never found a trace of his body. No evidence, no leads, no witnesses - nothing. Not even when they lowered an empty coffin into a lonely grave on a cloudy day in March the next year.

Matthew was the last to step away from his brother's grave when the funeral ended. He stared at his name on the headstone, wondering if his parents ever thought it would end this way. They'd buried Nathan without even really knowing if he was alive. But who was he kidding? Out of everything that could've happened, death sounded the most plausible. 

He kept staring, vaguely hearing his parents calling his name. Droplets started to fall from the sky, and it wasn't long before the new dirt and sod over the grave was soaked. He didn't know what he felt. Maybe it was guilt. Maybe it was remorse. It didn't matter. All he knew was that it was a good day for rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't realize how Houston-centric this thing would be when I started it, but I don't actually mind all that much.  
>  ~~JUSTICE FOR THE SCRAPPY~~


	3. beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A rogue was once among others, and a ghost has always once had a life of its own.

It was a joke to think his family ever went back to normal after his brother's funeral. Their parents never shook off the cloud of grief it brought onto them. Their father had a heart attack two years later. Their mother passed away in her sleep a year after.

They left everything to Matthew - the house, the money, the car. He sold almost everything, unwilling to be reminded of what had happened. Before he cleared out the house to sell it, he walked into his brother's room - everything exactly the same as he'd left it the day he disappeared. No one had ever had the heart to pack up his things, as if he would come back if they didn't.

Matthew walked to the desk in the far corner, covered in a layer of dust now that his mother was no longer keeping it clean. He stared blankly at it for a moment, before his face twisted and, with an angry yell, he swept everything from the desk, sending books and papers crashing to the ground.

"God dammit, Nate! Why'd you have to die? ...What the hell am I supposed to do now?"

Nothing answered him. The room stayed silent.

\---

With the house sold, Matthew tried to push aside everything and try to live life as normally as possible. Attending college with mourning parents and a missing brother had been hard enough - now that both of his parents were gone too, finishing up whatever he had left was a joke. His parents had been lower middle class at best, and whatever money his brother had been making before he disappeared, he'd taken it with him.

In an effort to preserve whatever inheritance he had left, he ended up getting a job at a grocery store, which was about as dead as it sounded. He was getting paid minimum wage, and on top of that, he was pretty sure his landlord was continually raising his rent. Some days he could barely afford to feed himself, not wanting to touch the money in the bank. But money was almost always tight, so eventually he had to start using it, and after three years, he was scraping the bottom of the barrel in his bank account.

After checking his miserable balance at the bank, he came home to his apartment to - _what a surprise_ \- another late rent sign taped to his door. Matthew ripped it off with a growl, crumpling up the paper and chucking it in the general direction of the trash can that was probably nearby. He turned on the TV, leaving the news on as background noise as he rifled around in his cabinets, trying to find something edible. After a moment he stopped, glancing back at the TV.

_I can't live like this. What the fuck am I doing?_

"...bank robbery at 1st Street, police are on the scene..."

_Am I really going to... Oh, for fuck's sake. I need money. And I'm already in the shithole, I've got nothing to lose._

He wasn't about to rob a bank as an amateur, obviously, but a jewelry store sounded small scale enough. All he needed was a gun and a ski mask, both of which he already owned. And if he got caught, they'd jail him - it was food and housing for the meantime. It wasn't half bad. He hesitated for a full week, both out of uncertainty and so the cops would back off after the previous robbery. No need to keep them on edge all the time.

Matthew parked his car in an alleyway and walked a few blocks to the mostly empty store. It was early in the morning, so hopefully the only people inside would be employees. All he had to do then was threaten and keep the noise down, then bolt to his car and get the hell outta there. He ran through his plan over and over again as he pushed the door open, the bell on it giving a little jingle as he entered. He moped around in a back office in the store for a while, long enough for the employees to forget he was in there in the first place. Quietly, he pulled the ski mask over his head and took out his pistol, holding it up as he raced back outside to the front of the store.

"Everybody get down!"

Several screaming civilians and a backpack full of jewelry later, he ran one block down before tugging the ski mask off and stuffing it into his jacket. He kept running for the next block, slipping into the alleyway, into his car, and driving off without a hitch. Later on in his apartment, he stared at the bag sitting on his kitchen counter for a solid minute before a confident grin spread across his face.

_I could do this for a while._

\---

Five years later he'd turn on the TV in the third apartment he'd moved into, to avoid suspicion, just back from hitting a jewelry store. He didn't know how much he'd spent since the first time, only that he'd definitely gone overboard. He had loan sharks upon loan sharks, but he didn't want to risk robbing stores daily just to pay them - so for now, he'd have to live with them.

"...World Bank was robbed today by four masked men, seen here in a video taken by a hostage."

"Pfft. They knock out all the cameras in the place and a civ still gets 'em on video?" He scoffed, watching the video in earnest anyhow. He kinda wanted to know who these guys were.

"-you're not gonna lose a dime! Think of your loved ones. Don't try to be-"

Matthew raised an eyebrow at the speech, staring at the grainy masked figure standing on a desk on the screen. A pair of legs came into view - probably one of the robbers, because seconds afterwards the video stopped, and the newscaster came back on.

"Police currently have no leads on the identity of the robbers. They made their escape by-"

He left the report on in the background, packing the stolen jewelry into a small bag and crossing the room to stash it away for safekeeping before the contractor who'd asked for it got there. Afterwards, he glanced back at the TV, pulling a face as he read the news headline.

"'Clown robbers'? Is that really what they're callin' 'em? ...Yeesh."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YAAAY COINCIDENCES


	4. impressions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dallas and Bain take notice of an exceptional user on crime.net.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (this is more like a Chapter 3.5, honestly)
> 
> I'm still not yet entirely happy with how Chapter 5 sounds, so I figured you guys deserved something to tide you over before I disappear into my schoolwork again.

"What the fuck d'you mean 'they're all gone'? I checked two months ago and there were at least six jewelry stores available."

"I mean _they're all gone_. They've either been cleaned out recently or went out of business _because_ they got cleaned out."

Dallas fought the urge to pull out a cigarette, hands tightening on the edge of the desk that a blueprint was spread out on. Normally he'd give into it - virtually all of the crew smoked anyhow, so no one would mind - but catching fire to a blueprint was a big no-no. Cigarette or not, this small store shortage was ticking him off. Little jobs were necessary between the massive ones the crew had pulled off, to keep the new contractors on Bain's new "crime.net" happy.

"Okay, so who the hell did it? Because it's not us."

"Some new-ish user. Doesn't even have a username, just stuck with the number ID you get at first. Robbed all of them one week after another. Damn, he's fast. Uh, gimme a second, I'll find some footage."

Dallas tapped his fingers impatiently on the desk as Bain was silent for a few moments, before he suddenly came back with a loud curse.

"Shit! Are you kidding me? I thought this guy had a crew!"

"...What, he's by himself? Six stores in a row?"

"It looks like he's good with stealth. All of these were done silent with civilians controlled." Bain muttered, a hint of admiration in his voice considering the Payday Gang had only been able to pull off heists loud so far.

"But why so many?"

"He's working for about ten different contractors, if that answers your question."

" _Ten of them?_ Jesus. I'm surprised he doesn't do multiple heists a day."

"They're not honest ones either. They specialize in extortion, and I'm pretty sure that's why he's got ten in the first place."

Dallas winced. "Sounds rough." Bain was silent, maybe in agreement, and after a moment of thought Dallas spoke up again. "...Can you get me more of his info?"

"Probably. Why?"

"I dunno, we could use some extra manpower on the next job." _And maybe pull off a quiet heist for once,_ He thought, rolling his eyes as it came to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyhow, YAY FOR MORE COINCIDENCES


End file.
